As some of my readers are undoubtedly aware, certain priests, including the Pharaoh, wore panther cloaks as part of their ritual uniform during special ceremonies. The “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony is one such ceremony, and it was arguably the most important of funerary rites. This ceremony allowed the deceased to eat and breathe and speak in the Otherworld. If proper funerary rites were not observed, the deceased’s soul was trapped and inert. It would fall prey to A/pep and other fell spirits, and perish forever.
Yinepu is, among a myriad of functions, considered the tutelary God of the funerary arts (J. Irytsabu has written far more on the subject of jackal deities than I could probably ever compile). He is the Divine precedent for the mortuary arts and those who practice it.
I recently acquired a rather inexpensive and fairly recent survey text on Egyptian religion and culture (wonderful for beginners, in case anyone is on the hunt for primer texts). In it, Egyptologist Geraldine Pinch describes a myth that comes to us from the Ptolemaic Period Papyrus Jumilhac. This late myth tells us how Yinepu came into possession of the leopard cloak that His priests wear.
A bit of prefacing is required in order to put the myth into some historical perspective, which Pinch provides. She writes:
. . . The case of the mutilation of Seth is rather different. In the oldest sources (in which Seth and Horus are generally regarded as brothers rather than uncle and nephew), two pairs of life-giving circular objects, the eyes of Horus and the testicles of Seth, are damaged. Thoth has to heal both wounds so that the equilibrium can be restored. Then Seth, the strongest of the Gods, will join Horus the Harpooner, the Eye of Ra, and many other warlike deities to defeat and dismember the ultimate enemy, the chaos-serpent [A/pep]. This fits the pattern of mutilations as ultimately beneficial transformations. Later sources usually have Seth mutilated as a punishment for His crimes without any subsequent healing or making whole.
A reproduction leopard cloak, crafted from an antique Amur leopard skin by the inimitable Peter Chiappori for a museum exhibit.
Papyrus Jumilhac contains several stories about the eyes of Horus and the body of Osiris localized to the Jackal Nome. In one, Seth is punished by Anubis for trying to tamper with the body of Osiris. The flesh of Seth is roasted so that the aroma reaches Ra in the sky. The skin of Seth in His panther form is cut off, branded, and worn as a cloak by Anubis . . . By the Graeco-Roman Period, the body of Seth was said to have been divided into many parts after His defeat. One part was buried in each of the 42 nomes, forming negative counterparts to the body parts of Osiris.
(98)
Despite these mutilations without restoration in later texts, Set somehow manages to restore Himself and return, as A/pep does in earlier myths. Each night, A/pep remanifests from Uncreation to torment the Gods and Their Creation. Each night, Set and His comrades must slay the vile serpent once more.
By the Late and Ptolemaic Period, Set became conflated with His eternal enemy A/pep. Set then became, as Rundle-Clark phrases it, “the death that strikes one down; His confederates are the demons of decay and dissolution.” He continues, “the completion of the rites and the establishment of the ordered ritual at the tomb are ‘the rescuing of [Osiris].” (123)
Through Yinepu’s defeat and flaying of what Set came to represent in Late and Ptolemaic Period theology, Yinepu conquers death for the inert deceased. As Yinepu paves the way for everlasting life and rebirth in the Otherworld for Osiris — the prototypical deceased — so do His priests pave the way toward everlasting life and rebirth in the Otherworld for the mortal deceased. The leopard cloak thus becomes a symbol of triumph over permanent death.
Isn’t learning fun?
WORKS CITED
Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Myth : A Very Short Introduction. New York : Oxford University Press, 2004.
Rundle-Clark, R. T. Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt. London : Thames & Hudson Ltd, 1978.
